Chapter 2 - The Father Who Never Knew
The nurse wanted Claire out of the room.
Dante refused.
“Mr. Moretti, your heart rate—”
“Claire stays.”
Claire folded her arms.
“You don’t decide that.”
The nurse looked between them as if realizing there was an entire history nobody had included in the medical chart.
Claire exhaled.
“I’ll stay until he settles down.”
Dante’s eyes never left her.
The nurse adjusted his medication and checked the monitor.
“Five minutes,” she warned.
Then she left.
Silence descended.
Dante whispered, “I didn’t know.”
Claire looked toward the window.
Seattle was beginning to lighten beyond the glass.
“I know.”
“No, Claire. Listen to me.”
“I heard you.”
“If I had known—”
“What?”
Her gaze snapped back to him.
“You would have returned?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“You were gone.”
“I would have come back.”
“You were apparently having me watched for eight months, Dante. Your people somehow managed to report that I was alive but missed the newborn baby attached to me?”
Dante looked genuinely confused.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No.”
His expression sharpened.
“What hospital?”
“What?”
“Where was Mia born?”
“Harbor Ridge.”
“Under your name?”
“Of course.”
“Did anyone contact you?”
“Why would they?”
Dante stared toward the door, his mind working rapidly.
Claire recognized that look.
It was the expression he used when something didn’t fit.
“I had someone monitoring threats around you,” he said slowly. “He gave me reports every week.”
“Congratulations.”
“He never mentioned pregnancy.”
Claire said nothing.
“He never mentioned a baby.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It is.”
His voice became colder.
“But it means somebody lied to me.”
Claire almost laughed.
“You vanished from your pregnant girlfriend and we’re discussing who lied to you?”
“I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“You would have if you’d stayed.”
He flinched.
Good, Claire thought.
Let him.
Dante closed his eyes for several seconds.
“When did you find out?”
“The morning after you left.”
His eyes reopened.
Claire continued.
“I woke up and you were gone. Your closet was empty. Your toothbrush was gone. The coffee machine was still warm.”
Dante looked as if he remembered the room.
“I found the note.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Nothing will fix it.”
“I know.”
Claire hated that answer because it left her with nowhere to put her anger.
Dante swallowed.
“Did you try to find me?”
“For months.”
Another visible blow.
“I called every number I had. Most were disconnected. I went to the warehouse office you claimed to work from. It was empty.”
“Claire—”
“I called your friend Gabriel.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“What did Gabriel tell you?”
“That he hadn’t seen you.”
For the first time, something dangerous entered Dante’s face.
“Gabriel knew where I was.”
Claire fell silent.
“He knew exactly where I was.”
“You’re sure?”
“He arranged my travel.”
The room seemed colder.
Claire remembered Gabriel Bell.
Handsome.
Polite.
Always smiling.
Dante had introduced him as the closest thing he had to a brother.
Claire had called him three times after Dante disappeared.
On the third call, Gabriel had sounded almost compassionate.
Claire, whatever happened, Dante clearly made his choice. Don’t destroy yourself chasing someone who doesn’t want to be found.
She had cried after hanging up.
“Why would he lie?” Claire asked.
“I intend to find out.”
“You are lying in an ICU.”
“That has never stopped me from finding things out.”
Claire hated how familiar the sentence sounded.
“Your daughter isn’t part of this.”
Dante’s attention returned to her immediately.
“Our daughter.”
Claire’s face hardened.
“You don’t get that word automatically.”
Pain crossed his features.
“You’re right.”
Again, no fight.
Somehow that was worse.
Dante stared at his hands.
“What does she know about me?”
“Nothing.”
He nodded once.
It looked like someone had struck him.
“I told her her father wasn’t part of our lives.”
“You told her I was dead?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wasn’t going to build her childhood on a lie.”
Dante gave a bitter laugh.
“Better than I managed.”
Claire looked at him.
“She started asking when she was four.”
“What did you say?”
“That adults sometimes make choices children aren’t responsible for.”
“She thinks I chose not to know her?”
Claire didn’t answer.
Dante understood.
His eyes shut again.
For several seconds, only the monitors filled the room.
Then footsteps sounded outside.
The door opened.
The younger man in the suit entered.
“Boss.”
Dante looked at him.
“Not now, Nico.”
“We have a problem.”
Claire immediately moved toward the door.
Dante stopped her with one word.
“Please.”
She hated the effect it had.
Not an order.
A request.
Claire stayed.
Nico glanced at her.
Dante said, “Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of Dr. Callahan.”
Nico’s eyes flickered.
“We identified one shooter.”
“And?”
“Dead.”
“Who?”
“Rafael Cruz. Worked contract security for a company tied to Luca.”
Dante’s face went stone cold.
Claire looked between them.
“Who’s Luca?”
Dante didn’t answer immediately.
Nico did.
“Dante’s cousin.”
“Family,” Claire said flatly.
Dante looked at her.
“Family is often the most dangerous thing in my world.”
Claire thought of Mia sleeping peacefully in Kate’s apartment.
Fear crawled through her.
“Why would your cousin want you dead?”
“Because I’m changing things he doesn’t want changed.”
Nico added, “And because Mr. Moretti refused to hand him control.”
Dante gave him a warning glance.
Claire noticed.
“Control of what?”
Neither answered.
She laughed once.
“Right. The warehouses.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Claire.”
“No. I’m done with half-truths.”
Nico’s phone buzzed.
He looked at it.
His expression changed.
“What?” Dante asked.
Nico walked toward the window.
“We have another problem.”
“What?”
“A man showed up downstairs asking about Dr. Callahan.”
Claire’s heart stopped.
“Who?”
“He left before security reached him.”
Dante’s eyes went instantly hard.
“What did he ask?”
Nico looked directly at Claire.
“He wanted to know whether Dr. Callahan still lived on Queen Anne Avenue.”
Claire went cold.
She had moved from Queen Anne four years earlier.
“How would he know that address?”
Dante’s expression answered before his mouth did.
Someone from six years ago.
Someone who had known her.
Dante turned to Nico.
“Find him.”
Nico nodded.
“And put someone on Claire’s home.”
“No.”
Claire stepped forward.
Dante ignored her.
“Two people on the building. No contact unless necessary.”
“Absolutely not.”
His gaze shifted to her.
“Someone is asking about you.”
“I can call police.”
“You should.”
“I will.”
“And I’m still putting security outside your home.”
Claire’s anger erupted.
“You don’t get to invade my life because you suddenly found out you have a daughter.”
Nico went very still.
Dante’s head turned slowly toward him.
Too late.
Nico had heard.
His eyes widened.
Dante’s voice became deadly quiet.
“You heard nothing.”
Nico nodded.
“Understood.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
Now someone else knew.
Maybe trustworthy.
Maybe not.
She suddenly understood how quickly secrets died in Dante’s world.
“I’m going home.”
“You’ve been awake twenty hours.”
“I’ve worked longer.”
“Claire.”
She picked up her phone.
“I have a daughter to get ready for school.”
Dante’s face changed again at the word daughter.
Claire saw him fighting the urge to ask a hundred questions.
Instead, he asked only one.
“Can I see a picture?”
She almost said no.
Then she looked at him.
At the man who had almost died three hours earlier.
At the man who had done something unforgivable but apparently had not known Mia existed.
Claire unlocked her phone.
She found a photograph from the previous weekend.
Mia sitting at the kitchen table, flour on her nose, proudly holding a crooked chocolate cake.
Claire placed the phone in Dante’s hand.
He stared.
His eyes filled so quickly that Claire looked away.
Dante touched the screen with one finger.
“She looks like you.”
“She has your eyes.”
“And my chin.”
“Unfortunately.”
A weak laugh escaped him.
Then his expression crumbled.
Claire had seen fathers learn their children were dying.
She had seen mothers told their newborns were healthy.
She had witnessed every kind of human grief.
But she had never seen anything like the way Dante looked at a photograph of the six years he had missed.
“She likes horses?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Claire hesitated.
Then, despite herself, she answered.
“She draws constantly.”
“What does she draw?”
“Mostly horses. Sometimes dragons. Once she drew our neighbor as a potato.”
Dante smiled.
Claire hated how natural it looked.
“She sounds funny.”
“She is.”
“Is she healthy?”
“Yes.”
“Happy?”
Claire took the phone back.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
Dante looked relieved.
Then the room door opened.
A man in blue hospital scrubs entered, pushing a medication cart.
Claire frowned.
She didn’t recognize him.
“What are you giving him?”
The man didn’t answer.
His hand moved beneath the cart.
Claire saw metal.
Not medicine.
A gun.
Everything happened in less than two seconds.
Claire shouted.
Nico lunged forward.
The man raised the weapon.
And Dante, barely six hours after being shot twice, tore the IV from his arm and threw himself toward Claire.
The first suppressed shot shattered the glass behind them.
The second buried itself in the wall.
Nico hit the attacker.
They crashed into the medication cart.
Claire dropped behind the bed.
“Security!”
The attacker slammed Nico into the wall.
He reached for the gun again.
Dante tried to stand.
His knees buckled.
Blood appeared beneath his bandage.
“Dante!”
Claire caught him.
Then three armed security officers flooded the room.
The attacker was forced to the floor.
Silence returned almost as violently as the chaos had begun.
Claire pressed both hands against Dante’s bleeding shoulder.
His face was gray.
“Stay still.”
He looked at her.
Not at Nico.
Not at the attacker.
At Claire.
Then he whispered, “Now you understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Whoever wants me dead knows this hospital.”
His gaze sharpened.
“And if they know about you…”
Claire’s blood turned cold.
May you like
Dante finished quietly.
“They’re going to find Mia.”
